2. Niger policy for youth inclusion: institutional and community perspectives In this section, we briefly present the perceptions of institutional actors recorded during the ECRIS (2019), focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of policy on youth entrepreneurship in Niger. We compare these with the perceptions of long-term resident community actors and from gender-disaggregated focus group discussions on the impact of government policy, more generally, on youth employment and welfare. In addition to the summary presented below, details on existing national policies are laid out in Annex A and on institutional and community perspectives in Annex B. Youth policy on entrepreneurship: perceptions of institutional actors We interviewed officials we met during the ECRIS, asking them how past and present youth policy provisions had evolved and about challenges to their implementation. Institutional actors spoke of a series of policies established in recent decades on employment, population growth, health, education and training, all of which influenced the socioeconomic conditions of the youth. These interviews and supporting documentation reveal a policy focus on youth and on entrepreneurship as a mechanism for change (see Annex A). First, we note that current employment policies are more focused on the needs of young people compared to previous decades, during which ‘they were approached in a generic way’ as underlined by a member of the Ministry of Youth Entrepreneurship, who added, ‘[n]owadays policies are focused toward young people and their improvement’. Notably, there are policies targeting children's rights, girls and women's health, family planning and women's rights. Initiatives also involve education (see Annex A), agriculture, the environment and climate change (soil recovery, agricultural inputs, development of market gardening, breeding) as well as entrepreneurship. On the latter, current policies emphasise entrepreneurship in particular by promoting self-employment, which it was argued should generate more jobs for young people and ‘thus mark the youth’s own responsibility in increasing their economic agency and achieving their development goals’. This could imply a form of neo-liberal policymaking, leaning towards greater self-responsibility of the policy recipient with a limited institution-led policy framework applied. Second, whilst institutional actors emphasised that there is a real political commitment to youth at the state level, they also deplored the lack of financial and other resources being mobilised to support these policies. Reflecting these conditions, Niger is low down in the league table of tax-to-GDP ratios and state revenues have only slowly increased over time (IMF, 2019). According to an official from the Ministry of Employment, Labour and Social Security, governments often make statements followed by weak actions. In fact, financial resources to support youth policies come mostly from external aid rather than internal
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